Alleged options: ‘Stay or get shot’

On the side of a rural highway, alone with a man she had just met, a woman says she was given three options: Get shot in the head, be shot at while trying to flee, or stay with the man.

She says that man, 48-year-old Leslie Peter Ross, raped her the day after issuing that ultimatum.

Ross pleaded not guilty at the start of his trial in the High Court in Palmerston North yesterday to raping, kidnapping, assaulting and threatening to kill the woman during Queen’s Birthday Weekend, 2016.

The alleged rape happened in Palmerston North, but the other charges span from Napier to Feilding, and towards Taupo¯ . The woman said she started messaging Ross via Facebook about getting a tattoo covered up.

They first met in Napier in the early hours of the Sunday morning and travelled to Palmerston North so Ross could get his tattoo equipment. They stayed at a Dannevirke motel on the way to and from Palmerston North.

During this time together she saw him staring off into the distance, muttering about ‘‘going to one of my dark places again’’, she said.

She picked up a friend’s daughter in Napier and went to a park, while Ross went off in a huff.

The pair soon reunited. When his car wouldn’t start he went to her, said he had heard things about her he wanted answers for, then punched her in the head.

The pair drove around, with the woman saying she was afraid to try to run away after she was threatened, before stopping at the Napier-taupo¯ turnoff.

That is where the ultimatum was issued, with the woman initially saying she would try to drive away. But she decided to stay after Ross said he never missed his target and was always ‘‘locked and loaded’’.

‘‘He had a satchel and was grabbing it like he had a gun or something in it,’’ she said.

They drove around before heading back to Palmerston North, going to a flat near the hospital, she said.

The pair stayed on a mattress in a room, where Ross made sexual advances, she said. ‘‘I kept saying ‘no’ and his eyes would get dark, he would get angry and he would try again.

‘‘In the end his eyes went dark and I was like ‘he is going to get into that dark place’, so I just went along with it. I didn’t want it. I was scared.’’

She escaped when he went into a Palmerston North dairy to get cigarettes, speeding because she thought he might steal a car and chase her. She made it to Feilding, parked her car in a loading bay, ran into the back of a store and screamed for help, she said.

‘‘I went between some crates, rocking myself and saying ‘I don’t want him to find me’ and ‘keep me safe’. I was a mess.’’

During his opening address, Crown prosecutor Truc Tran said forensic testing linked Ross’ sperm with the complainant.

However, Ross did not tell police he had had sex with the woman. ‘‘I’m sure his position is going to change in relation to that,’’ Tran said.

Defence lawyer Paul Murray said Ross denied the threats, kidnapping and assault, and said any sex was consensual.